On a quiet Saturday in 2024, Deborah Watkins ('91, '97 M.S.) sat at the kitchen table and cried -- not from sadness, but from the sound drifting through the house. Downstairs, her fiancé Joey Sloan practiced double bass. Upstairs, his daughter practiced flute. And sitting there with her coffee, Watkins realized she finally had the kind of music-filled home she had always wished for.

That moment didn't happen by accident. Music had been part of Watkins' life long before she became a two-time graduate of UNT.

She first came to campus as a child, back when UNT was still North Texas State University, tagging along while her mother worked on her master's degree. Watkins remembers being dropped off in the Union with her siblings and coloring books while her mom went to class. Once, she even took a summer course on how to train a pet, then went straight home to teach the family dog to sit.

Years later, choosing North Texas for her own education was simple. Watkins enrolled at North Texas with a plan. She wanted to teach, but she also wanted to follow her mother's advice to earn a degree in a subject she loved. She chose mathematics, with minors in economics and education -- a foundation that launched a successful career in finance and forecasting.

Long after graduating, she returned to UNT in a new way, establishing an endowed economics scholarship in honor of her favorite professor.

"UNT changed my trajectory," Watkins says. "Those economics classes gave me the confidence in statistics that I needed to do what I do."

Watkins knew she would keep giving back, and she thought her story of supporting UNT would continue to be about economics. But her newest endowment, benefiting students in the College of Music, celebrates her late fiancé, Joey Sloan.

That story began in a high school orchestra hall. Sloan grew up in a musical home. His father, a jeweler by trade, was also a gifted jazz pianist, and Joey followed his lead. In sixth grade, he chose the double bass -- a decision that carried him from jazz into classical music and, eventually, into a lifelong calling.

He and Watkins played in the same award-winning orchestra at North Mesquite High School. Sloan was a four-time All-State musician -- "king of the orchestra," Watkins says with a laugh. Watkins played viola. They weren't close then, but they shared the same seriousness about music.

Years later, Sloan told Watkins he remembered the first time he noticed her. She was holding the stage door open for bass and cello players, arms full of instruments and music stands. He thought she was sweet. Then he thought she was cute.

They nearly found each other again at their 20-year high school reunion in 2006. Sloan, who went on to become orchestra director with Lovejoy ISD, reached out on MySpace before the reunion. Both had recently ended long relationships. Both quietly hoped the other might be there.

But nerves intervened. Watkins flirted boldly. Sloan was not used to that­­ -- he panicked and got up from the table for a moment. He later told her he stood in the hallway for quite a while, deciding whether to turn left to the bar or right back to the table with Watkins.

He turned left, and at the bar, he met another woman who would become his wife and the mother of his daughter.

Sloan and Watkins were both in their mid-50s when they finally reconnected for good.

"It was a miracle," Watkins says.

They found their way back to each other just in time. They were together only a short time before Sloan passed away.

In the fog of grief that followed, Watkins woke up one morning with a clear thought: She needed to do something musical to honor him. She established the Joey Sloan Memorial Scholarship for undergraduate music students using money she and Joey had planned to spend on a car. The need-based scholarship supports students who play double bass or viola -- instruments, she says with a wink, that "don't usually get invited to the party" -- admitting she stole the phrase from Jeff Bradetich, Regents Professor of double bass.

But honoring Joey through a single scholarship didn't feel like enough.

UNT's Planned Gifting team gave her a great idea. "I wanted to name a quintet after him," she says. UNT already has the Bancroft Quartet. "There had to be five -- with a double bass for Joey and a viola for me."

By pledging annual support now, Watkins ensured the Joey Sloan Chamber Quintet will begin performing while she's still here to listen. The quintet is expected to launch in fall 2027, offering scholarships to five graduate students each year.

She tears up thinking about hearing them play, then adds with a laugh, "It's really selfish, because now people have to talk to me about Joey forever."

That's exactly the point.

Watkins hopes the students who benefit feel supported. But more than anything, she wants Joey's name spoken in a musical setting, over and over again.

"This will be forever," she says. "Even long after I'm gone."

For Watkins, the gift is about love, timing and legacy -- and making sure the man who changed her life continues to do the same for others.

"I just want his name spoken," she says. "That's all I care about."